Correctly identifying a media stream can substantially improve viewer's experience. Particularly, such identification may allow a viewer to obtain metadata regarding the movie, e.g., on a mobile phone or on the TV set itself, if the movie is being watched on a TV set. Interesting metadata can include, for instance, the names of the actors, the director, the year of production, etc.
The art has approached this problem and attempts have been made to provide a solution, mostly based on soundtrack recognition, such as in US 2011/0264700, which provides a system for identifying online videos.
Solutions based on soundtrack are sensitive to surrounding noise. For example, if it is desired to recognize a TV show, all the people in the room must keep quiet. Furthermore sound recognition normally takes a long time.
The art has so far failed to provide a solution that enables fast and robust video identification, taking into account various environmental conditions, such as the distance from the screen, distortions, etc.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for identifying video content, which overcomes the disadvantages of prior art methods.
It is another object of the invention to provide apparatus and systems that employ the method of the invention.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.